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France to create a network of ‘safe consumption sites’ for drug addicts

France's health minister Olivier Véran has announced that two new shooting galleries will be created every year, as health authorities struggle to deal with problems caused by drug addicts.

An employee prepares a users' kit at the supervised injection site in Strasbourg, one of two such facilities in France.

“We have approved funds to finance treatment and addiction centres,” Véran told France Inter radio on Wednesday. “I will provide health and social teams to wean off consumers who are currently on the street.”

As part of the project, the safe consumption rooms have been re-dubbed haltes soin/addiction – recovery/addiction centres (halte can be interpreted as a place to rest, or an order to stop), although they are also popularly referred to as salles de shoot (shooting galleries).

In a letter read out during a Fédération Addiction conference last week, Véran wrote that the goal of the new terminology was to “be done with the caricatures about ‘shooting galleries’ and concentrate on care”.

Extending the network

Véran said two new centres would be created each year at a national level. A law from 2016 authorises the creation of low-risk consumption rooms, but so far just two have been set up – one in Paris and one in Strasbourg. Those test facilities were due to run until 2022, but the government announced last week that they would be extended until 2025.

“I myself was an MP in 2015, involved in the creation of the first consumption room in Strasbourg and things are going very well,” he said.

“We therefore have proof that in our country this type of structure, providing support for withdrawal to avoid risk and unsanitary conditions and to better support the most vulnerable people, works.

In August, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo announced plans to create four new facilities in the capital. On September 15th, Prime Minister Jean Castex gave the green light for three of the four sites, but after discussions city hall decided to abandon the fourth site, which was due to be situated on rue Pelleport in the 20th arrondissement.

Crack smokers light their crack pipes on the docks at Stalingrad Square in Paris.

Crack smokers light their crack pipes on the docks at Stalingrad Square in Paris. Photo: JOEL SAGET / AFP.

The proposition had drawn criticism from local residents, who complained the site was too close to a school.

“We need coherent proposals for sites, meaning not 15 metres from a nursery or primary school,” Véran said on Wednesday.

Crack consumption is a long-standing problem in Paris, and users were once again evacuated from the jardins d’Eole and Stalingrad areas, towards Porte de la Villette in the 19th arrondissement on Friday.

Residents of the Pantin suburb of Paris denounced a “wall of shame” over the weekend, after authorities bricked up a tunnel under the Paris ring road to stop dispersed addicts from moving out of the capital.

How France compares to its neighbours

“France had fallen 40 years behind. The first low-risk consumption room in Geneva is more than 40 years old,” Véran told France Inter.

In fact, Europe’s first supervised drug consumption room was opened in Berne, Switzerland in 1986. In the 35 years since then, the concept has spread throughout the continent.

There are currently 78 official facilities spread across seven of the countries which report to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) – that includes the EU27 as well as third countries such as Switzerland and Norway.

In 2018, in addition to France’s two centres, there were: 31 facilities in 25 cities in the Netherlands; 24 in 15 cities in Germany; five in four cities in Denmark, 13 in seven cities in Spain; two in two cities in Norway; one in Luxembourg; and 12 in eight cities in Switzerland, mostly in German-speaking areas.

A map shows the locations of 78 safe drug consumption facilities in Europe.
Map: EMCDDA

As well as clean injection equipment and health advice, many of the centres offer access to primary healthcare and the possibility to take a shower and wash clothes.

According to the EMCDDA, “There is no evidence to suggest that the availability of safer injecting facilities increases drug use or frequency of injecting. These services facilitate rather than delay treatment entry and do not result in higher rates of local drug-related crime.”

The EU agency highlights the effectiveness of drug consumption facilities to “reach and stay in contact with highly marginalised target populations”, while the presence of facilities has also been shown to reduce behaviours such as syringe sharing that increase the risk of HIV transmission and overdose death.

While plans for drug facilities in Paris have proved controversial with residents, where centres do exist, they have been linked to a decrease in public injecting.

“In Barcelona, a fourfold reduction was reported in the number of unsafely disposed syringes being collected in the vicinity from a monthly average of over 13 000 in 2004 to around 3 000 in 2012,” the EMCDDA states.

READ ALSO French health system to offer free psychologist sessions

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POLITICS

Macron warns of ‘civil war’ if far right or hard left win election

President Emmanuel Macron warned that the policies of his far-right and hard-left opponents could lead to ‘civil war’, as France prepared for its most divisive election in decades.

Macron warns of ‘civil war’ if far right or hard left win election

French politics were plunged into turmoil when Macron called snap legislative elections after his centrist party was trounced by the far-right Rassemblement National (RN) in a European vote earlier this month.

Weekend polls suggested the RN would win 35-36 percent in the first round on Sunday, ahead of a left-wing alliance on 27-29.5 percent and Macron’s centrists in third on 19.5-22 percent.

A second round of voting will follow on July 7th in constituencies where no candidate takes more than 50 percent in the first round.

Speaking on the podcast Generation Do It Yourself, Macron, 46, denounced both the RN as well as the hard-left France Unbowed party.

He said the far-right “divides and pushes towards civil war”, while the hard-left La France Insoumise, which is part of the Nouveau Front Populaire alliance, proposes “a form of communitarianism”, adding that “civil war follows on from that, too”.

Reacting to Macron’s comments, far-right leader Jordan Bardella told French news outlet M6: “A President of the Republic should not say that. I want to re-establish security for all French people.”

Bardella, the RN’s 28-year-old president, earlier Monday said his party was ready to govern as he pledged to curb immigration and tackle cost-of-living issues.

“In three words: we are ready,” Bardella told a news conference as he unveiled the RN’s programme.

READ ALSO What would a far-right prime minister mean for foreigners in France?

Bardella has urged voters to give the eurosceptic party an outright majority to allow it to implement its anti-immigration, law-and-order programme.

“Seven long years of Macronism has weakened the country,” he said, vowing to boost purchasing power, “restore order” and change the law to make it easier to deport foreigners convicted of crimes.

He reiterated plans to tighten borders and make it harder for children born in France to foreign parents to gain citizenship.

Bardella added that the RN would focus on “realistic” measures to curb inflation, primarily by cutting energy taxes.

He also promised a disciplinary ‘big bang’ in schools, including a ban on mobile phones and trialling the introduction of school uniforms, a proposal previously put forward by Macron.

Prime Minister Gabriel Attal of Macron’s Renaissance party poured scorn on the RN’s economic programme, telling Europe 1 radio the country was “headed straight for disaster” in the event of an RN victory.

On Tuesday, Attal will go head-to-head with Bardella and the leftist Manuel Bompard in a TV debate.

On foreign policy, Bardella said the RN opposed sending French troops and long-range missiles to Ukraine – as mooted by Macron – but would continue to provide logistical and material support.

He added that his party, which had close ties to Russia before its invasion of Ukraine, would be “extremely vigilant” in the face of Moscow’s attempts to interfere in French affairs.

Macron insisted that France would continue to support Ukraine over the long term as he met with NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg.

“We will continue to mobilise to respond to Ukraine’s immediate needs,” he said alongside Stoltenberg at the Elysee Palace.

The election is shaping up as a showdown between the RN and the leftist Nouveau Front Populaire, which is dominated by the hard-left La France Insoumise.

Bardella claimed the RN, which mainstream parties have in the past united to block, was now the “patriotic and republican” choice faced with what he alleged was the anti-Semitism of Mélenchon’s party.

La France Insoumise, which opposes Israel’s war in Gaza and refused to label the October 7th Hamas attacks as ‘terrorism’, denies the charges of anti-Semitism.

In calling an election in just three weeks Macron hoped to trip up his opponents and catch them unprepared.

But analysts have warned the move could backfire if the deeply unpopular president is forced to share power with a prime minister from an opposing party.

RN powerhouse Marine Le Pen, who is bidding to succeed Macron as president, has called on him to step aside if he loses control of parliament.

Macron has insisted he will not resign before the end of his second term in 2027 but has vowed to heed voters’ concerns.

Speaking on Monday, Macron once again defended his choice to call snap elections.

“It’s very hard. I’m aware of it, and a lot of people are angry with me,” he said on the podcast. “But I did it because there is nothing greater and fairer in a democracy than trust in the people.”

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